Pharmacy First: Recognition of tick bites and the symptoms of Lyme disease

While tick bites/Lyme disease is not treatable under Pharmacy First, it is important that pharmacy teams understand the signs and symptoms as patients may present for treatment for infected insect bites with a tick bite with an erythema migrans (EM) rash (also known as a bullseye rash), who will need to be signposted onwards.

Lyme Disease UK has lots of information on their website including:

• Key considerations and photo examples to help diagnose the EM rash;
• A Wake up to Lyme awareness pack – this includes posters, leaflets, tick cards and suggested posts that can be used on X (Twitter); and
• An animation that can be played (if you have a digital screen) in your pharmacy.

The Royal College of General Practitioners website also has a Lyme Disease e-learning toolkit which is available for other healthcare professionals to access (please note, you will need to register on the website to be able to access the e-learning).